Dean has basically had a continual goal of NOPE NOPE NOPE anything but this for Cas
Even if it means the pain of taking himself (as he is poison) away from Cas for his own good
But Cas won’t leave him even at his worst
So of course he feels all the pain and anger when Cas does eventually nearly then actually die and it’s because he was poison, the things he did with him changed Cas, Cas stayed with him through all this and he led Cas here
And then here
And when he does eventually realise and admit that it wasn’t Jack’s fault, that he didn’t brainwash Cas, that Cas chose to do what he did when he forgives Jack and accepts him as family it only serves to make it worse. If Cas’ death is not Jack’s fault then whose is it? If you’re thinking Dean’s self worth / I’m poison / everything I touch turns to ash / I’ve done nothing but cause Cas to fall, lose his purpose, his family, his entire existence, he was so depressed and ended up caring so little about his own life that he let Lucifer in then all this / specifically thinks he’s the one who led Cas here to his death from only a few episodes before this is somehow important in season 13 again… I think you’re damn right.
So no wonder he continues to try to hold Cas at arms length for Cas’ own good when he gets him back in season 13. Even though all Cas wants is to be allowed to stay with him and be closer. Dean thinks he is doing this for Cas because he will only make things worse for him, as proved only recently.
He still thinks Cas would be far better off without him.
Meanwhile Cas thinks Dean pushing him away and keeping him at arms length is just because he doesn’t want him not because Dean can’t bear to lose him at all and will give up his own happiness to maintain what he thinks are Cas’ best interests.
I’ll take miscommunication and self loathing tropes for $200 Susan.
alright heads up you all for a little dutch lesson. sit back and enjoy. i know this isn’t the only ‘gay translation’ we’ve had in the past but i haven’t seen this one yet so here we go.
friend in dutch is ‘vriend’. but if you say ‘mijn vriend’ (my friend), you always mean ‘my boyfriend’. there’s no other word for boyfriend, except ‘vriendje’, but as this literally means ‘little friend’, it’s often just used by teens and adults don’t really use it especially not cool dudes like dean
if you want to say ‘my friend’ platonically, you’d say ‘mijn vriend hier’ (my friend here) for if they’re in the room, ‘deze vriend’ (this friend) if they’re in the room or if you’ve mentioned them before, or ‘een vriend van mij’ (a friend of mine) if they’re not around. dean in this case could’ve used ‘mijn vriend hier’, it’d be the basic thing to say meaning your platonic friend.
but he didn’t. he says ‘mijn (….) vriend’, which means boyfriend.
if you do use this phrase but you mean a platonic friend, people will assume you mean boyfriend and it leads to awkward confusion. trust me, it’s not how you are meant to refer to a platonic friend.
even if you don’t care about this at all, he calls cas ‘onweerstaanbaar’, which means ‘irresistible’. so yeah, that’d already be enough.
Look at how dramatic these nerds are. Dean is literally and deliberately out of view behind a woman who at that moment is returning Castiel’s good will.
‘Good luck’
And Cas needs it because about a second later. Dean practically appears out of nowhere. That dramatic shit of appearing out of nowhere used to be Cas’ thing. Dean’s all pleased with himself for surprising Cas, and Cas is literally taken aback and speechless
IKR!
And then just after this sudden surprising reappearance by Dean, wham bam suddenly Cas himself becomes a target for the Angel who’s been in the area specifically targeting people with a broken heart.
Dean kicked Cas out of what he thought was his home and away from those he thought cared for him, giving him no valid reason and leaving him homeless and living in a GasnSip cupboard. Then he turns up with a grin and acts like everything is all fine?
In the words of one of the heartbroken victims, the one who just got dumped *ahem*, “who does that?!!”
I’m sure there’s a reason for Cas being targeted by the Angel just after Dean turns up, I just can’t….quite….put 2 and 2 together….
Ahhhhh!!! This gifset has killed me and I am typing from the afterlife…
“he makes eye contact and smiles a bit”
“well that cLEARLY means he’S INTO YOU what eLSE COULD THAT MEAN”
Dean Winchester says
about eye contact
eye
contact
Marghe don’t be delusional they’ve clearly been looking at some chick behind each other for 9 years.
I mean it’s not like people seem to notice or anything
It’s not like Dean calls Cas a “weird dorky little guy” with a far away gaze or “devastatingly handsome” in front of his whole family and then goes on to postulate that nope no that, that’s not what I meant, here have some overcompensating dudebro gay panic bullshit about waitresses smelling like food to make up for my jealous outburst.
That never happened. They were always looking at some hot chick behind each other and those characters who keep commenting that they’re boyfriends or have unrequited love for each other or use each other as a weakness //in the show// are all completely imagining things and you can tell cos they both brush it off so quickly and they never get bothered by it at all, ever. It’s never used as an actual plot point either.
*stares into the camera with the same intensity as they stare at each other*
During seasons 4-5 we could have had all the Cas / Dean scenes minus the UST. We could have had heated arguments that turned into a mutual understanding and Cas learning that he had always been different, always loved Humanity and through both Sam and Dean fallen and decided to rebel to help them.
They could have kept it as this:
But they didn’t. They made it all about Dean and added scenes like this:
Side note: they could also have TOTALLY portrayed Dean as a dude-bro straight as a rod hetero guy.
In fact there’s so much talk about Dean being bisexual it’s just… everywhere, not just on tumblr but in so many reviews and articles about the show e.g. just the latest one I’m aware of:
Then throughout the later seasons, they could have backtracked. They could have said hey, that was all fun, but nah, let’s keep Cas and Dean as a more brotherly familial love, to tie in with the “family don’t end in blood” theme.
I would have TOTALLY gone with that, happy Dean and Cas and Sam, all together as brothers, could have been AWESOME.
But they didn’t.
They consistently wrote them through ROMANTIC storytelling.
I’m just going from the season 7 resurrection because prior to this it was most likely not ever going to be endgame if it’s true they were going to kill Cas off.
Season 7:
– They could have not cast someone who looks like Dean’s female twin as Cas’ wife when he is amnesiac.
– They could have not had Meg call Dean his boyfriend first and make Meg/Cas romantic while Dean looks on with both Daphne and Meg with hurt in his eyes.
– They could have not introduced a queer character and make her immediately bond with Dean right at this point and then continue this theme over the years.
Season 8:
– Purgatory could have been a bro-ment, except they gave that role to Benny and placed Cas firmly in the romantic role, especially post purgatory with Dean’s visions being paralleled to Sam’s of Jess and his boner moment in 8×07, literally, wtf, that is not brotherly affection.
– They could have not had multiple episodes after Cas’ putting himself in harms way to save Dean in purgatory that revolved around a Supernatural being doing this for the human they loved.
– Then a whole story around brainwashing which one gets the other out of through telling them I love you I need you, followed by a whole storyline of Dean behaving like a JILTED LOVER and Cas trying to fix it, meanwhile Sam looks like the awkward person caught in the middle between a couple fighting, NOT his own two brothers!
Season 9:
– They could have had a story where Dean chose Sam over his best friend and newly found blood-brother, who he did a blood pact with and loved dearly in Bad Boys, but no, it was a ROMANTIC parallel.
– They could have had Cas not have sex with April or it be Sam who killed her and clutched his face in agony, so Gadreel felt it and healed him while Dean was knocked out. They could have then had Dean NOT sensually wrapping his mouth around ANYTHING OTHER THAN A PENIS SHAPED BURRITO whilst making sexual innuendos to Cas. But they did.
– They could have had the bar scene in 9×09 be all about the 3 brothers having a great time together, playing darts, having fun and chilling, rather than having a flirting winking thing going on between Dean and Cas and Sam just looking on open mouthed like WHAT IS HAPPENING WHY AM I HERE.
– They could have had a story that wasn’t focused all around sex in Rock and a Hard place, but they chose it to be sexual (when that ep was supposed to come right after 9×06).
– They could have had Ephraim going after people who were in pain and suffering due to familial loss when he went after Cas, but they didn’t, they made it a ROMANTIC parallel again.
– They could have NOT had a renownedromanticsong about loneliness, a deep shade of blue, the sun not shining anymore (when there had been so much Cas = sun visuals this season prior to this) and being “without love” with an “I NEED YOU” playing over softly interspersed images of Cas and Dean’s sad faces, when they had to separate due to duty (seriously, the one shot of Sam is just of him looking at Dean and worrying about how he is feeling during the intro before the lyrics play. Pfft).
– They could have had Dean help Cas get ready for his date by doing a Charlie-esque totally platonic scene where he took him shopping for a sweater and jeans, rather than making it look like he was undressing him with his eyes, forgetting to leave cos he’s just staring at him and looking longingly at him while calling him Tony Manero, a heavily subtextually bisexual character.
– They could have NOT paralleled Dean and Cas’ huge emotional traumatic break up in 6×20 with canon star-crossed lovers in 9×20. But they did.
– They could have had Metatron talk about how much Cas cared about puny humans and how he’s a sap for the mud monkeys, rather than making it ALL ABOUT SAVING DEAN WINCHESTER and using words like HE’S IN LOVE (giant ass pause)…. with Humanity.
– They could have then not had Amara telling Dean that he literally represents humanity and Chuck backing this up. Pff.
Season 10:
– They could have used Hannah as an actual romantic love interest for Cas rather than paralleling her unrequited love with Cas’ perceived unrequited love of Dean and using her to EXPOSE this. Or they could have just not made Cas’ story sexual/about romance AT ALL.
-They could have had SAM be the person Dean gets soft around instead of Cas or if they wanted to make Cas the brotherly figure, they could have done so in a way that didn’t scream ROMANCE like putting them in a date-like set up, making Crowley call Cas Dean’s BOYFRIEND, exposing how he’s doing it all for Dean and dying for him whilst paralleling this to Hannah’s romantic/sexual interest in Cas.
– They could have NOT repeatedly paralleled Cas with Cains’ WIFE in the Dean/Cain parallel, the love of his life, who softened him and made him want to be a better man.
-They could have had Dean get just as squicked about Destiel as W*ncest in the 10×05 fan fiction episode but they DIDNT. They made Dean squicky about W*ncest and testing the water with Sam by mentioning Destiel, then getting embarrassed by it instead of grossed out.
Season 11:
– They could at any time have made Cas/Sam stronger by the way by this point. But they didn’t. They purposefully made Sam/Cas less strong than Dean/Cas for *reasons* and those aren’t because Cas and Sam don’t care about each other and love each other as brothers/best friends because they repeatedly state that they DO. So go figure.
– They could have had the Angels torturing Cas as not making it sexual whilst talking about his loyalty and love for the Winchesters. But they did.
– They could have had Dean worry for and fight for Cas while he is possessed by Lucifer in a totally brotherly fashion as he would with Sam, but they made it ROMANTIC.
– They could have had the banshee in 11×11 go after people (again in parallel to 9×06) who were in pain due to familial loss rather than ROMANTIC loss when it went after Dean. They could have had the heartbroken manager look and say things that DIDN’T remind us of Cas before this happened, BUT THEY DID. They could have left it there but instead they gave us Mildred telling Dean that he’s PINING for someone. Just before he tells us in 11×13 that he is NOT pining for AMARA. So WHO is he PINING for?! Who has gone missing AGAIN? Who is he repeatedly over this and the next season worrying about?
-The monster in 11×13 didn’t have to be a DARKEST DESIRES monster (and not a love monster) and the story focus on unrequited love and therefore expose that although Dean’s feelings are of dark desire here, he states they are NOT love and that he ISNT pining for Amara…. SEE ABOVE.
-Amara could have gotten to Dean through a MULTITUDE of different options, through their own apparently strong bond. But they DIDNT. They did it through CAS and specifically THROUGH HIS HEART. I MEAN JEEZ.
– They could have NOT introduced at this point two characters who are gruff awesome hunter men who TOTALLY personality wise, story-wise and visually through their shoulder patting interactions are GIANT METAPHORS for Dean and Cas, while referring to the earlier ‘settling down with a hunter’ discussion in 11×04 through DEAN curiously wondering “what’s it like, settling down with a hunter?” after having mixed up brother / romantic vibes off them.
-They could have had the ‘you’re our brother’ moment in the car in 11×23 feel wonderful and fulfilling but instead (because of all this previously and the way it was framed) it felt OFF and WRONG. Because this isn’t the full truth is it Dean.
– They could have not had the whole season be a giant metaphor for this through Amara mixing up a brotherly and romantic “bond” (their words not mine) through Chuck and Dean.
THIS WHOLE SEASON COULD HAVE NOT BEEN A GIANT EXPOSITION FOR DEAN’S ROMANTIC FEELINGS FOR CAS AND HIS OWN INNER MONOLOGUE OF SELF WORTH AND ACCEPTANCE, LEADING TO HIS ARC AND CLIMAX OF THIS IN SEASON 12 AND SPECIFICALLY 12×22.
Season 12
– They could have introduced Cas to Mary as their brother from the OFF but at no point did either of the boys tell her that Cas is like a brother to them. She just… assumed he fit in as “one of her boys” and in the family by proxy and is the one who consoles CAS while he is not able to function while Dean is missing (but was able to function totally perfectly to find Sam with Dean) and she always looks to DEAN when talking about Cas. I WONDER WHY.
– They could have NOT had Crowley call Cas a “love slave” or had Dean glance over at Cas when he picked up the satiny pink panties. But they did.
– They could have NOT had an ambiguous double-over voice of Sam telling Mary “I love you” and Dean talking to Cas on the phone. That was TOTALLY UNNECESSARY and just made everyone pause and rewind to figure out what was said.
– They could have had a backstory filling in the blanks around nephilim that didn’t also have a story about an Angel falling in love with a Human and him projecting this onto Cas and Dean as his human weakness whilst also explaining that Angels are not supposed to have romantic or sexual feelings for humans at all and that it means they are bad, wrong and should be killed, that it is a sacred oath not to do so, meanwhile showing Cas as extremely duty bound and still loyal even though he has fallen.
– They could have had Cas CLEARLY tell the boys he loves them as family and they are dear dear brothers to him. Instead we got a season of double clarifications leading up to this where it was CONSISTENT that the first was to one person and the second was to everyone, on top of every other time Cas has done this the first is ALWAYS to Dean, so the ambiguously seeming “I love you, I love all of you” was blatantly a romantic / familial divide between Dean and Sam. Before you even look at the fact that he can’t hold eye contact for the first but looks at Sam for the second and the reactions of Dean and Sam show that they know exactly what this means.
– They could have had Dean give Cas ANYTHING OTHER THAN A ROMANTIC TROPE 101 lesson 1 first 5 minutes into the class MIXTAPE as a gift of ‘familial bonding’. But no, they used a romantic one.
– They could have not used the band chosen on the tape a band that is consistently made romantic through the Mary/John link and even before this a way for guys to get into Jo’s pants and a way for the siren to first try to seduce Dean.
– Throughout the whole show they could have given Dean any romantic love interest where it wasn’t directly linked since season 7 with him losing Cas, feeling like he just wants comfort and SETTLING for someone else. Then in 12×18 they could have NOT made this totally clear by at this point showing it to us through him firstly worrying about Cas AGAIN, in a 2 season long repeated hammering home of Dean worrying about Cas more and more and Sam trying to console him, then settling for the omelette right afterwards and being UNSATISFIED by it.
– They could have NOT paralleled Sam pulling Dean away to the rift with Dean pulling Sam back from Jess.
– They could have NOT paralleled Dean falling to his knees as a standard romantic trope to Cain doing it for Colette.
– They could have set the whole thing up for YEARS so that Sam and Dean have a much more similar bond with Cas, a three-way brotherly bond that could totally fit with the “family don’t end in blood” theme, just as Bobby was their surrogate father and Jody their surrogate mother, Cas could have been both their additional, chosen brother, given that Dean and Sam were so forced into their codependency, their choosing to be together and add another brother could so nicely cement their own bond too by adding Cas in his way.
But instead they chose to make their relationships palpably and obviously different, even though Sam loves Cas as a brother, for *reasons*.
In Conclusion:
EVERY TIME Dean/Cas has been narratively paralleled with 2 people on the show it’s been a ROMANTIC couple (eg. Violet/David, Maggie/Donald, Jesse/Cesar, Bobby/Karen, Mary/John, Betsy/Cacao, Chronos/Lydia, Cain/Colette…) not BROTHERS (as Dean/Sam have e.g. Lucifer/Michael, the kids from 1×18).
When Cas and Dean have been targeted by monsters it’s often because of a ROMANTIC reason – one which on the surface might look like it’s for example Nora or Amara but is textually shown NOT to be, meanwhile setting their own interactions in the same episode between each other as heavily subtextually romantic.
They could have made Dean/Cas a brotherly relationship and that could have been AWESOME and totally relevant to the themes of the show. But they CHOSE to make it romantic.
I SHIP DEAN/CAS AS A ROMANTIC PAIRING BECAUSE THE SHOW MADE ME DO IT.
In the episode that MISHA was in that we would be watching, Rufus said “I need you” to Jiya. Pfft.
In SPN:
“… Especially me” – Bobby Singer to his wife Ellen in 6×17.
I mean it’s really not a stretch when this is the time Dean figures out his feelings and with rest of their story to see that this is clearly romantic.
And then Cas rejects him? Immediately and twice? 8×07 and 8×17? By “straightening things out” and leaving? He doesn’t mean to obviously, but that’s how it comes across.
And their reactions?
I LITERALLY DON’T UNDERSTAND HOW ANYONE CAN WATCH THIS AND NOT SEE THIS AS ROMANTIC.
WE HAVE DEAN BEING HEARTBROKEN, FEELING REJECTED, UPSET AND ANGRY. CAS NOT UNDERSTANDING DEAN’S MULTI-LAYERED REPRESSED WAY OF SAYING HE LOVES HIM AND THEREFORE NOT KNOWING WHAT HE’S DONE WRONG (because he’s not human and his people skills are rusty) BUT TRYING DESPERATELY TO FIX IT WITH THE THINGS HE KNOWS DEAN LOVES (because these are things Dean has said he loves out loud to Cas so he, being literal, latches onto these, showing us that he just doesn’t understand Dean’s hidden meaning).
AND HOW THIS FITS IN WITH THE REST OF THEIR ROMANTIC AF STORY.
HOW CAS THEN FALLS AND REALISES WHAT HE FEELS IN RETURN IS LOVE. THERE’S SOME FLIRTING AND UST DESPITE DEAN’S REJECTING HIM IN TURN FOR SAM, BUT ONCE THAT IS SORTED DEAN THEN IMMEDIATELY GETS THE MARK OF CAIN AND HIS FEELINGS GET REPRESSED FOR THE BEST PART OF 2 YEARS, MEANWHILE HIS SOFT MOMENTS ARE USUALLY AROUND CAS. HOW THEN DEAN SPENDS THE NEXT 2 YEARS SHOUTING “WHAT ABOUT CAS?!” AT ANYONE WHO WILL LISTEN WHILE CAS TRIES TO REDEEM HIMSELF FOR HIS PAST MISTAKES AND GET A WIN FOR DEAN… FOR HIMSELF.
HOW DEAN IS NOW COLLAPSED OVER HIS DEAD BODY IN SHOCK AND NOT ABLE TO PROCESS WHAT JUST HAPPENED WHILE SAM IS UPSET, PROCESSES BUT RUNS INSIDE TO SORT OUT THE ACTUAL PROBLEM ON THEIR HANDS.
WHILE DEAN JUST… FALLS TO HIS KNEES AND PRAYS.
HOW. DO. PEOPLE. NOT. SEE. THIS. AS. ROMANTIC.
If anyone still has doubts whether “I need you” is romantic – just go to google images, and google the phrase in ANY language. I googled it in Polish, English and German (because the movie “Wings of Desire” ends with the main girl telling the ex-angel who gave up his grace to be with her “Du brauchst mich. Du wirst mich brauchen” – “You need me. You will need me.”), and all you get are images of love declarations. So, yeah.
@margarittet speaks words of wisdom. I just googled it in Italian and all the pics refer to romantic love with one (1) that was a prayer to God. Lol.
I’d first like to point out that I have less personal expirience to add to this post, but i do have a submissive person’s perspective on dominance. So- I can look at Dean’s perspective as a submissive as well. (Though Cas is dominant with anyone, really)
While dominance can often involve power, power and dominance are not the same thing. Castiel hold a lot of power, being an angel and all, but his angelic power is not the same as his dominance. (Though it does help) Just like with Dean, we have to look at body language.
Cas looks down at people instead of up at people as Dean does. Again, it’s not a huge thing to look at, but it matters. Even though both the Winchesters (and plenty of antagonists) are taller than Castiel, he doesn’t do the “I’m looking up at you for instruction” type of acknowledgement Dean does. You see the little head tilted back thing he does so he can look down on people.
(Disregard Misha’s adorable face doing that h movement at the corner of his mouth) He actually does the head tilt back a lot? But regardless he maintains eye contact which is a dominant trait. Unlike Dean “shifty eyes” Winchester like seriously.
Dean obviously can make eye contact but he easily gets shifty eyed and nervous. Usually Cas initiates the true deep eye contact.
Cas has power and confidence in a way that his glaring in someone’s direction can have SO MANY different meanings.
One of the legit best examples of Castiel’s dominant body language is this gif. Dean is not always affected by people attempting to intimidate/flirt/get in his space, but he is 100% affected by Cas being in his space. Because the stare is coming from someone with power, it has such impact. And Cas is not one to falter in his gaze, he keeps on staring. He easily asserts dominance with the way he looks at people.
Along with that, he is not afraid to lay a hand down when he’s not being listened too, especially when it involves people he loves. He has a great sense of loyalty.
Yes, Castiel rebels but it is for Dean, and for the Winchesters. He once saw the angels as his brothers and as his family, but now Dean and anyone he cares about- that’s priority. Castiel is protective. And when the person he is protecting fucks up he gets PISSED.
I do not want to turn the above moment sexual- because it is not- I’m looking at it in other terms. Castiel gives what he has and expects respect, he wants obedience.
From the beginning all he wants is respect, respect for giving so much to someone. But in the end…he’s always fighting to protect Dean or make Dean happy. He feels that keeping the Winchesters safe and happy is his job.
Being dominant in this situation makes sense. When being a dominant, one takes on a responsibility to make a submissive safe and happy. This often translates into life with Castiel.
He feels that his purpose, quite literally, is to protect Dean Winchester. Perfect Dom material. He also feels that failing Dean is one of the worst things he can do and that he must make it up to him. He protects people he cares about and feels horrible when he loses their trust.
As for…the sexual aspect of dominance we don’t have much to go off of. But what we do know is that sex is a power exchange.
So we can take power exchange into real life situations.
This is a great example. In this scene, Dean’s first reaction is a “what the fuck” but as soon as he sees Cas, as soon as Cas gives him that look that says “shut your fucking mouth and stay still” Dean is handing over his power to Cas in no time. They share this dynamic a lot, simple looks from Castiel communicating large things.
Alright, early, early gif. Cas READS people. And yeah, he’s an angel, but this is when he doesn’t know Dean, has no reason to tell him what to do. But Cas tells him he knows he wanted to stay dead, he knows he enjoyed torturing while he was in hell, he knows that Dean thinks that he is unworthy and worthless in general. He tells people what they think and what they deserve. Any more explanation needed?
This here hahaha, its a real good one. One of my favorites. Cas looks so confused that Dean is doing something for him, telling him what to do. Dean is tying his tie, Dean is explaining how things are gonna go, Dean is walking him through something and it’s fucking WEIRD. This is the power exchange in reverse and it’s weirding Cas out.
This here, invasive touch. Cas is not the best at personal space, and he certainly get told by Dean, but most of that is angel awkwardness. To get to this one we’re going to Misha. That’s right, even more meta.
Misha is where all the touchy-feely that Cas lacks is stored. Handshakes, gestures, invasive touches, that is Misha’s middle name. He’s especially touchy around his costars *cough* Jensen.
Misha is also a very caring person, the person that people can trust and look to for help when they most need it. He is very calming and gentle towards his friends as seen above. This is a moment where Jensen was struggling HARDCORE, on the verge of an anxiety attack or stress breakdown and Misha swooped in to save the day. He cares about people he has mutual trust with and that’s a very important part of being a dom.
But seriously the touching gets ridiculous. Get your hand off of Jensen’s cock you are in p u b l i c.
He even has the fucking cocky dom eyebrow to bring it all together.
Anyway we can all agree that Misha’s dominant personality is half of Cas’ dominance, but what about other characters?
Lucifer. He is power hungry, uses his power to create an illusion of dominance. He keeps Crowley on a leash, talks like he is hot shit, uses some dominant body language but he has no empathy. Misha is an amazing actor. There is a difference between playing an asshole dominant character and a genuine dominant but Misha brings his dominant body language to both.
As we near the end we can certainly see that Misha contibutes to the angel’s dom nature, but the way he’s written does as well. You take Misha body language, add Winchester passion, and angelic powers and you get a great dominant character.
A dominant character that could easily get Dean on his knees.
My favourite character parallel for Dean Winchester may be Lorelai Gilmore from “Gilmore Girls”.
It is not such a far jump from Dean Winchester to Lorelai since they practically stole Jared from “Gilmore Girls” mid season five. I was an avid fan of the show at the time (I still am), and the parallels between Dean/Cas and Lorelai/Luke are so obvious to me now, expecially after season 12. It also was a slow burn romance between two friends with CRAZY chemistry, and I wouldn’t mind Dean W./Cas relationship’s portrayal to be based on it.
Btw, there is A LOT OF PLAID between the two shows!
LORELAI/DEAN W. PARALLELS:
A person who became a parent way too young.
A parent of a prodigy “child” with their eyes set on an Ivy League college, and a better future.
Hard working single parent, who sacrifices everything to give the “kid” all they can at the expense of their own personal growth and happiness (but they are happy when the kid is happy.) They have been fighting financial struggles their whole “parent” lives, but they always made sure that the “kid” gets everything they need, even if it meant doing things they were uncomfortable with (like borrowing from Lorelai’s parents/hustling pool and stealing).
You know, I feel like Castiel’s intense need to always give Dean peace and keep him from having to do the morally questionable work always feels like penance for what happened in On the Head of a Pin.
Castiel is the only one alive who saw Dean in hell. He is the only one who witnessed him at what Dean considers his very worst, when he took pleasure in causing other’s pain. Sam knows how much internal pain and conflict this caused Dean, but he was never actually witness to it. I think it’s up there among Dean’s greatest fears (after losing Sam of course), going dark side again and hurting innocents. Even when he was a demon, he still had enough of Dean Winchester in him to fight off that impulse. Crowley kept him sated by feeding him demons to harm because even Crowley knew making Dean hurt innocents would be stepping over a dangerous line. It’s why Dean was willing to be launched into space and sacrifice himself forever, to avoid becoming the thing that fucked him up the worst.
Back in season 4 Castiel only knew that Dean was the Righteous Man, had a mission God wanted him to do, and that he was Alastair’s best torture student. And he had seen Dean in hell enjoying the torture. So when he commanded Dean to return to torture, it was with some trepidation (I mean, even then Cas was starting to fall, starting to “
express emotions, the doorways to doubt”) but he still insisted upon it because he didn’t truly understand how bad it would be for Dean. But then things went south. Dean was darkening right there in the room with Alastair and Cas began to doubt. And when Alastair got free and nearly killed Dean, I think Cas felt immense guilt and began to truly change how he saw his life and Dean’s and broadened his role as Dean’s protector from just physical to emotional.
It feels like so many of Cas’ decisions since that day are his own self-imposed penance for that decision because they are explicitly to give Dean peace and save him from ever having to harm an innocent and become what he saw in hell again. In the green room, Cas was trying to shield Dean from the pain of seeing Sam free Lucifer. Season 5 was all about saving Dean from saying yes to Michael because the ensuing battle would harm millions of innocents and Dean’s psyche. Saving Dean from becoming involved in shady dealings with Crowley and a heavenly war was Cas’ entire storyline of season 6. In season 8, Cas was willing once again to die and be locked in Heaven to give Dean peace on earth. He avoided Dean when angels were after him to keep him out of the fight and was willing to stay by his side literally forever when he was a demon to protect him from the pain of harming innocents.
So now, Cas going to heaven where many of his siblings hate him and stealing the Colt to go kill Kelly on his own are very much in character and follow the trend of Cas being willing to take on just about anything to give Dean peace and keep him from having to go down that path that he first witnessed in hell. I imagine for Cas, there is no worse fate than allowing Dean to live with the pain of harming an innocent again, when he can take that on himself. Cas may make some terrible decisions, but every one seems to be out of love and self-sacrifice for Dean.
Everyone may be flailing about the incredible romantic implications of the giften mix tape, but let’s not let that overshadow another grad gesture of love on the part of Cas: to once again be willing to even damage his own soul by killing an innocent to protect Dean from ever being even close to what he saw in hell.
Even at the end of s6 (and really ALL of s6, based on what we learned in 6.20) was about the same thing.
In 6.21, Dean IS torturing demons trying to find where Lisa and Ben had been taken, he WAS falling into that again when Cas showed up and saved him from a demon who escaped his trap and was about to kill Dean. Because Cas saw Dean almost beyond caring for himself again.
What he didn’t see was the look on Dean’s face after he told Cas to leave.
It’s what motivated Cas to throw in with Metatron in 8.22. It’s what motivated him to work with Sam behind Dean’s back in s10 to cure the Mark. It’s why he’d said yes to Lucifer in 11.10.
It’s the absolute most heartbreaking incarnation of “I did what I had to do.”
THIS IS ONE OF THE MOST BEAUTIFUL DEAN AND CAS SCENES IN SPN HISTORY.
Here we have Dean and Cas being open about their feelings. Cas has been away, and Dean’s been worried. Cas comes back, and Dean lashes out at him.
For most of their relationship, they never talk about it. Dean just assumes that Cas just wants to get away from him because he thinks Cas has more important things to do than spend time with him. Cas, on the other hand, always thinks that the only way he can be acceptable to Dean is if he isn’t a burden, if he delivers what is required of him, and if he functions properly as a savior and protector. Neither of them know the truth. Dean doesn’t know that Cas would want nothing more than to stay with him, that the reason why Cas is away all the time is so he could keep him safe. Cas doesn’t know that Dean just wants him to stay and keep him company, to fight alongside him, and to always be within reach because he worries about him all the time. They care about each other so much, but they’ve always had trouble communicating it properly–until now.
Dean gave Cas a mixtape of his Top 13 Zepp traxx–Dean’s extended an olive branch to Cas to let him know that he matters so much to him that he wants him to share his taste in music and know the words to his favorite songs–that maybe they don’t always say the right things to each other, but maybe the gesture would show him how much he means to him.
And here we see Cas returning the mixtape Dean gave him after spending a
significant time apart. He uses this as an olive branch to get Dean to
talk to him–to let him know that he listened to it while he was away because he cares about him–that maybe this gesture would be capable of bridging the distance between them. But Dean gives it back to Cas and reinforces that the tape is his because he gifted it to him, and Cas takes it back. They tell each other everything.
Dean tells Cas that he’s angry because he’s worried, and Cas tells Dean that all he wants to do is redeem himself to Dean. They’re communicating their feelings. They know each other more wholly. They understand each other.
And it’s really amazing to see how far they’ve come now that they’ve both realized that they’re so much better when they’re together.
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